Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Best College Football games of 2007

There are close to 700 regular season college football games each season. Many of them are snooze-fests. The 130 games list below should pique your interest for 2007. There probably won't be as many exciting non-conference games as usual for a few reasons. Notre Dame probably won't be good. Many of the non-conference games that feature two marquee names feature teams with a lot of uncertainties. Nonetheless, there are some intriguing games out there in non-conference play. If Nebraska/Wake Forest gets you excited, then there are even more non-conference games worth looking in to.

Obviously, my rankings will have a fair amount of Midwest-bias but I did my best to remain neutral. My emphasis was placed on more than a few factors such as expected rankings, date and time of the game, and location. For instance, a game like Texas @ Texas A&M becomes increasingly more intriguing because the game is in College Station making the outcome less obvious. Other biases crept in as well such as my relative distaste for watching games in certain stadiums (i.e. games @ Florida or @ Miami (FL)). I love night games with crazy crowds which is why I have such an affinity for the Michigan/Wisconsin game. Keep in mind that my feelings were greatly influenced by how I expect teams to perform this year. In most seasons, Notre Dame vs. any-respectable-opponent would be a must-see game. Since ND will likely struggle this season, their games probably won’t be as entertaining. Also, some games that otherwise would look bland have the potential to be quite entertaining because of various factors. For instance, Washington plays both Boise St. and Hawaii both of which have very good chances of going undefeated. Although Washington probably won't be that good, it represents the major hurdle for the winner of the Hawaii/Boise St. game to an undefeated season. I did not include conference championship games so we have those to look forward to above and beyond these games.

As you will see in my weekly breakdown below the 130-list, five of my top 11 games take place the week of November 10. So, you might want to plan on being in front of your TV that week if you aren't heading to one of the games already. Ten of my top 73 games take place the week of November 24. So, plan accordingly. The worst week is week one which is the case in most years. Thankfully we don't have to start the season off with another Miami (FL)/Florida St. snoozer. Hopefully a meeting later in the season will make for a more entertaining game. I started putting this together a while back so I wasn't able to get times for all the games. I believe some of the "TBD" games have been given start-times since.